Newest anti-Keystone activists: Tea Partiers

If there’s anything the Tea Party hates, it’s whatever the government is doing right now. Which means greens have picked up some unusual allies in the fight against the Keystone XL pipeline: Texas Tea Partiers who think the project violates property rights . “Crippling someone’s water supply knows no party line,” said Rita Beving, consultant to the bipartisan East Texas Sub-Regional Planning Commission. A Republican mayor and a Democratic city secretary lead the group’s fight against the pipeline. TransCanada has shown itself willing to use eminent domain to acquire land to build the pipeline. The company says it prefers to come to “voluntary agreements” whereby landowners sell their land, but just on the off chance that you would rather not give up your land and instead keep your land, they’re prepared to take it. This sits about as well with Tea Partiers as a gay clinic ...